NAVY FEDERAL CREDIT UNION MARK MACHEN, APRIL SHERMAN, LOU BRENNER, CUTLER DAWSON, JOHN LOCKARD NAVY FEDERAL CREDIT UNION - DUAL TRACK SCAM VIENNA, Virginia

Dual Track Scam

I had the unfortunate incident of becoming involved with a negligent bank negotiator during the short sale process. Let me explain so you can avoid it.... How does the short sale process work? Buyer makes offer to seller. Seller accepts. Agent submits offer to bank (sellers lender) for price approval. Bank approves price to close or negotiates. It's that simple. We did exactly this and got our bank approval back from Navy Federal Credit Union. Yeah! We took that approval letter to the mortgage broker and they start closing. We celebrate the bank approval letter and that basically locks in the home at our price! Its that simple, right? Well no its not... 

On October 31, 2012 we were approved by the bank to close on the home at an agreed sale price and a deadline of three weeks to close. A couple weeks go by and we pull title and learn that the house was sold on November 7th, 2012 at a foreclosure auction by the bank. Our agent calls and since we were actually renting the home she said to move out or rent it for an absurd amount of money. Celebration turns to eviction? After some investigation on my part I found out the bank negotiator Karyn Mapp at Navy Federal Credit admitted to our title company on a voicemail that she forgot to take the property off the foreclosure list! A clerical error forced the sale of a house regardless of our approval letter. I called my father a former foreclosure specialist and he said to file a redemption on the home within 10 days of sale to vacate the sale or intervene. Epic Fail. This put us in court until the end of January and cost us legal fees and we still lost.

The Judge claimed that the sale process was done correctly but one of the buyers (since there are two now) whomever would lose and be wronged and would have a cause of action for damages, or do we? Well we lost that case! It seems like a clear breach of contract case right? This is where the bank started acting strange and stonewalled us, ignoring me for months. For a bank that helps Navy Veterans and I am sure has done a lot of good in the past is sure doing its best to hurt us. During the case to fight to save the home I came to the conclusion that the bank was making more money by foreclosing on the home instead of short selling and this is considered an opportunistic breach but hard to prove in court. 

After the case closed and we were basically abused at this point having to move out of our house. I tried contacting the bank everyday for three months before I got Mark Machen associate general counsel to Navy Federal Credit Union on the phone. Glory, this man will understand and write me a check for my damages due to the breach of contract. Wrong! I had written a nice letter and the whole office new about me. What are the odds? Mr. Machen was short, firm, and would not admit any fault. Each week he claimed he would review the file and call me back. He originally claimed the property was on a dual track for foreclosure or short sale which ever came first. But what about the short sale approval letter? I am still waiting for my call back on a settlement for damages. I have therefore, dubbed this the dual track scam. Another white collar crime for banks.